Club sports alternative to bad coaching

I often receive great responses to my columns. I wanted to share two with all of you regarding my thoughts on playing for your school team vs. club teams.

I think these guys make some great points! Thank you for your responses. Keep them coming.

Excellent article on making the correct choice. Being involved in education, youth, high school and collegiate coaching over the last 26 years, I could not agree more.

Personally, I have attempted to encourage individuals to participate in as many activities as possible and to represent their school teams first.

Educators coaching school teams, hopefully, are exhibiting proper ethics, teaching techniques and strategies that make them professionals in our field.

- Daryl Steverson

East Greenbush (N.Y.) Schools

Physical Education

Assistant Football Coach

Union College

Schenectady, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Kuyper:

You always emphasize the important role of good coaching in the experiences of athletes. I completely agree with that.

However, I disagree with your point that school sports should be more important than club sports for the same reason.

School sports are a monopoly; if you get a bad school coach, your only choices are to change your sport or change schools.

Club sports are not bound to a geographic region, so an athlete who gets a bad club coach can change clubs without having to move to a new town. I have seen this happen numerous times.

Like any monopoly, school sports have to be regulated much more than they are now to ensure that the coaches are living up to the rules.

My family moved last summer to get away from a very bad school soccer coach.

We (and many other parents) tried to get the school administration to make the coach follow the most basic of good coaching practices, but we failed.

For example, he tells the girls who want to play, "If I put you in and you make a mistake that causes a goal, how will you feel?" This is when they were ahead 8-0. He was after a shutout record.

This practice destroys the athlete's self- confidence.

Four girls (very good players) left the team. If he was a club coach, we could have voted with our feet. Instead we have to move our kids to a new school district.

Club sports can also be a source of community pride. Many other countries (such as New Zealand) put emphasis on club sports.

Your argument that school sports are preferable for that reason is simply based on the way things are and contradicts your previous columns that emphasize good coaching.

The community is largely satisfied by winning, but the emphasis on winning alone, as you often point out, is not always in the best interest of the athletes.

With clubs, the parents and athletes have more choice about whether they want to use athletics to emphasize winning or development of character and values.

- Rob